KOOZ Featuring more than 60 works which range from 5.600 Cubicmeters Package for documenta IV in Kassel (1968) up to The London Mastaba (2018), the exhibition showcases a variety of artworks made by Christo and Jeanne-Claude throughout their lifetime. What prompted the project and what is the value of hosting this gargantuan endeavour within the site of the Castello di Miradolo? What defined the specific selection of artworks exhibited?

FRANCESCO POLI The idea of organising an exhibition dedicated to Christo & Jeanne-Claude was born a few years ago when the president of the Cosso Foundation met Christo in person and became very interested in his and his wife's research, particularly the environmental aspect of their interventions. The exhibition project was a challenge: being able to document—from a historical-chronological point of view—all their main realised and unrealised projects through Christo's beautiful original collage-assemblages, photos and films. It was essential to also evoke the extraordinary collective effort necessary for the final result of the spectacular installations. The result was satisfactory because through a very careful layout, a rigorous, clear and evocative visual narrative was staged in the sequence of rooms. Two sections were dedicated to Christo's participation in Nouveau Réalisme (with works by the other exponents of the group), and to the comparison with the international situation of Land Art, with the goal of historically contextualising the work of the artist couple.

KOOZ The couple created numerous works in both urban and rural environments. How did the projects seek to reframe the way we see our built environment?

FP A fundamental aspect that distinguishes Christo & Jeanne-Claude's artistic conception from that of the protagonists of Land Art is that all their projects have a social purpose, meaning that they have been carried out in places frequented by people, even in the case of interventions in natural settings. As for the projects of "wrapping up" bridges, arches and urban buildings, the most fascinating result is to make people rediscover and revise, with a new eye, the social, cultural and architectural meaning of pieces of the city that everyone knows but that have become, by the inertia of habit, totally neglected realities. Then there are, in particular, projects like that of the Reichstag in Berlin that also have a symbolic importance of extraordinary historical and civic value.

KOOZ A common denominator through most of the works (with potentially only the exception of The London Mastaba) is the use of fabric, cloth, textile: fragile, sensual, and temporary materials. How did this materiality translate the temporary character of the works of art?

ROBERTO GALIMBERTI I would like to start by quoting them:

"Unlike sculpture, which is static, our designs are in motion, like an object coming to life. There are many great artists who have been inspired by The Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, a work of Giotto, a perfect example of how fabric occupies a large part of the fresco. No face is highlighted, only large parts of fabric; in the figures there is a very large drape that goes down to the ground: in the composition of classical art, the fabric creates a great harmony and it is the same harmony that is found in the cloth that we use for our great works of art in the open air."

As Christo & Jeanne-Claude point out, the fabric lends an "organic," living character to their projects: the synthetic materials they use allow for a strong contrast between light and shadow and seem to emphasise the aesthetics of forms, movements, and proportions. Those who observe, skim, walk through their projects, engage their "physical sensibility," measure themselves with the reality of things, with water, wind, trees, buildings, light: it is not virtual reality, it is not illustration. Temporality is part of this relationship with the real, suspended between the inevitability of its own mutation and the desire to perpetuate itself, between fading and the memory that, in remembrance, seems to divest itself of its veils.

KOOZ Although the duo believed that labels are important but mostly for bottles of wine, they accepted being defined as “environmentalists” claiming that through their artwork they were able to achieve much more than environmentalists could afford to do. How and in what ways did Christo & Jeanne Claude redirect our gaze to our surrounding ecosystem and the importance of protecting this? To what extent were the projects shaped by an ethics of re-use, repair and regenerate? (The use of the nylon fabric as discarded parachute material and the Vietnam poles for Running Fence or the removal of 40 tonnes of garbage for Surrounded Islands come to mind as an example.)

PAOLO REPETTO At the beginning of the 1960s, going far beyond the limits of traditional painting or sculpture, Christo & Jeanne-Claude started to deeply engage with landscape. They did it always with great care and respect, using recyclable materials and organising everything while always paying close attention to the environment and thus to the surrounding nature and its delicate balances. Basically, their works are conceptual operations, whose pivotal thought—as I have already written in the catalogue—focuses around the idea of revealing: ri-velatio, putting on and taking off a veil, according to its Latin etymology. In this sense, temporarily covering a famous monument, or a part of a coastline, or varying a landscape, teaches us to revise, urges us to rediscover a place, a monument, an environmental space that we took for granted. As Proust said, "The true voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Their environmental artwork has always lasted no more than two weeks, then everything is restored as before. And what remains is just the idea and the plans, the mixed techniques as maquettes. But through that covering, that veiling, that variatio, we have learned to retune our gazes and our consciousness. This is their ethical point: through that presence-absence (we hide it or temporarily vary it) we can begin to see and respect nature, the landscape and its historical monuments again.

KOOZ What role can and should artists play in drawing our gaze and expanding our understanding of the contemporary climate crisis?

PR I am not aware that Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s artistic research ever denounced climate problems directly. However, it is objective to say that their environmental works are meant to awaken our consciousness about major ecological problems. Their works, so novel and original, deal with expansion, with the broadening of our understanding, and implicitly involve climate issues. In this sense, an important contemporary artist related to them is certainly Michelangelo Pistoletto, who through the various declinations of his Third Paradise, carries out a strong environmental and historical rather than aesthetic engagement. Like Christo, in the search for a new, renewed consciousness for a new balance between us and nature, between us and time.

Bio

Francesco Poli is an art historian and critic. He has taught History of Contemporary Art at the Brera Academy and Université Paris 8. He currently teaches Art and Communication at the University of Turin. He has curated numerous exhibitions in public and private spaces and collaborates as a critic with magazines and newspapers. Among his published texts: "La Metafisica"; "Minimalismo, Arte Povera, Arte Concettuale"; "La Scultura del Novecento; Il sistema dell'arte contemporanea"; "Arte Postmoderna. 1945-oggi"; "Mettere in scena l'arte contemporanea". With Giorgina Bertolino he is the author of the General Catalogue of Felice Casorati's artworks (ed. Allemandi, 2004). Together with Francesca Filippi he is the general editor of Storia dell'arte per le scuole superiori, "La Bellezza resta" (ed. Bruno Mondadori 2022), just published.

Paolo Repetto was born in 1965. He graduated with honors in modern literature with a major in art history from the University of Genoa. He completed his musical studies at the Conservatorio Verdi in Turin, graduating in piano. As a historian and critic, he has always delved into the relationships and correspondences between art and music. For several years he taught History of Art and History of Music in the Civic Institutes of Turin and Asti. He has published numerous essays and books.

Roberto Galimberti holds a diploma in violin, a 2nd level Academic Diploma in Musical Disciplines, School of Chamber Music, and a degree in Disciplines of Art, Music and Performing Arts. He performs in various orchestral and chamber ensembles in major national and international festivals. He is in charge of the musical curatorship of numerous art exhibitions, collaborating with the Palazzo Bricherasio Foundation in Turin, Ricordi, the Sgarbi Foundation, the Consortium of Royal Sabaudian Residences, and the Cosso Foundation. He created the soundtrack for the Mafia Museum for the Italian Pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale. In 2009 he conceived Avant-dernière pensée, which became the resident art project at Miradolo Castle.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.